Steinbach Mayor Earl Funk addresses recent spike in crime

There has been a spike in crime in Steinbach this spring, and RCMP are working hard to keep crime down. 

The provincial government is currently funding overtime pay for four police units with the Winnipeg Police Service in hopes to fight spikes in retail theft. 

Steinbach Mayor Earl Funk says there are currently no plans in the works to have something similar in Steinbach. 

“They're under a different jurisdiction because they have their own Police Department, so that can work well for the Winnipeg region.” 

He notes that extra overtime funding for police officers in Steinbach would have to be initiated by the province. 

“I haven't heard anything from the province or D-Division that they were going to be authorizing overtime for that,” he says. “Now overtime does happen, it just naturally happens because if the call volume is very high, they call in someone on-call and that would be on-call overtime. So it does happen here too, it's just not necessarily a program from the government at this time.” 

Funk says a big issue our RCMP are facing right now are the government's bail laws. 

“I think we're working with a provincial and the federal government right now that don't see the bail laws like we do as more of a conservative community. 

He says our RCMP are doing the best job they can do in the circumstances they are in. 

“It makes the job very hard when you go through all the work, you go pick up someone who's done a crime, and they get charged, and it goes to arraignment, and then they're released. It's hard when the work you do is always being undone, for the RCMP.” 

Funk can’t promise that crime will go down, but he assures they are working very hard at it. 

He says a challenge is that they need to get criminals that are higher up in the system. 

“They're replaceable too, but it's harder to replace them. It takes care of a lot more if we can go for a bigger target.” 

Since a lot of crime happening in our area is drug-related, the City of Steinbach is thankful for programs like Headway, as they are a reliable avenue to lowering crime. 

Funk says he was sold on the idea of Headway when he saw the statistics from Selkirk, as Headway was formed from the START program in Selkirk 

“These young people were having less involvement with the RCMP, getting better grades, going to school, they graduated. You break the cycle and now they become very productive citizens.” 

When they started up the Headway program in Steinbach, there were 19 intakes the first year.  

17 within the first two months had reduced their RCMP involvement to zero, the other two moved away, making for a 100 per cent success rate. 

“And that's what sold me as a councillor at the time, and now as mayor, that this is a good program. Because it really does close those gaps, and it really does help those youth at risk, and the families of those youth because the families are required to come to the table as well.”